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Training for Harris County precinct chairs to prepare for the March 1, 2016 precinct conventions was held Tuesday, February 23 in Houston.

RERcontributor Cyndi Martin Lawrence was in attendance and witnessed an unexpected grenade being lobbed into the middle of the meeting room.

SREC Committee Member Chris McDonald (SD6) was before the crowd conducting his portion of the training when he apparently went down the rabbit trails of rabbit trails. Inexplicably, McDonald purposefully voiced a warning to the precinct chairs that members of the Texas Nationalist Movement, Republican Liberty Caucus, and those in favor of legalizing marijuana would possibly attempt to “takeover” the precinct conventions.

Lawrence reported that an immediate and audible murmuring began to spread throughout the room. There was a bit of uneasy squirming going on. “It kind of spooked people a little bit. I wish Chris would have stated it differently or clarified what he meant. When I called Chris later to clarification about this, ‘is it a rumor, is this talk in Austin with the SREC, or is this coming just from you?’. He said It’s coming from him.’ He has been getting emails from the Texas Nationalist Movement and the RLC dealing with resolutions.”

To compound the problem and panic, Harris County precinct chair Nancy Scott rose up in the meeting and testified to all that it had happened to her in the past. She told Lawrence at a past convention 50-60 people showed up and took over. Lawrence pressed Scott on what she meant by “took over” after the training’s conclusion. Scott’s grievance is that they made sure that they occupied all the delegate slots and passed all of their resolutions.

On his program, Apostle Claver Kamau-Imani pointed out that if such attendance was achieved at a precinct convention, that’s not a “takeover”.

“In order to attend a precinct convention, you must have the proper credentials. You must have voted in that precinct to enter into the convention. Therefore, if there’s 50-60 voters in one precinct that show up and just happen to be a part of a LM org, that’s not a takeover. That’s democracy”, stated Kamau-Imani. “Just because a precinct chair is outnumbered on resolution and delegate votes, doesn’t mean it’s a ‘takeover’. There’s upheaval in the party, at every level, and Lavaca Avenue is either panicking or has decided to go postal.”

Texas Nationalist Movement President Daniel Miller, was none too happy. In a statement released by the TNM Friday after RagingElephantsRadio.com broke the news, Miller pounced.

“There is no doubt in our minds that this warning comes straight from the top. RPT Chairman Tom Mechler, in a desperate bid to hold on to his position has declared total war on the TNM, our supporters, and those within the Republican Party who want to simply see Texans be able to exercise their right to vote on independence,” said Miller.

McDonald’s warning is the oddest twist. SREC member McDonald pointed out to RERcontributor Cyndi Martin Lawrence that he voted in favor of the resolution presented at the 2015 fourth quarter meeting of the SREC to have a non-binding referendum on Texas Independence placed on the March 1, 2016 ballot.

Miller told RER, “That’s why we’re all sitting around sort of stunned. We really counted Chris to be in favor of the people having their voices heard on this. It’s not a matter of if someone is in favor of independence, or not. For the SREC, it should only be a matter of if the will of Texans will be heard.”

A close connection to Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition (RAMP) expressed absolutely no surprise at the reported warning. The connection underscored that RAMP has been denied a booth at the state convention – in spite of the fact that the founder of the group is a lifelong Republican and senior citizen Ann Lee of Houston, and Gov. Abbott signed into law new medical marijuana regulations following the 2015 legislative session.

Controversially, Chairman Tom Mechler has allowed the first LGBT booth at this year’s convention.

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On May 12, 2015, Ron Hickman was appointed Harris County Sheriff by County Judge Ed Emmett. At the time of the appointment Hickman was serving as Harris County Constable Precinct 4. The Sheriff’s position became vacant when pro sanctuary cities Sheriff Adrian Garcia resigned to launch a failed bid for Houston mayor.

The appointment was baffling. All indications pointed to the probable appointment of State Rep. Allen Fletcher. Fletcher, former law enforcement, raised the speculation when he announced he wasn’t going to run for another Austin term. After he was passed over for the sheriff’s positon, Fletcher called an audible and decided to turn his attention to a private security company.

After assuming office, deeper research went into the previously unheralded Hickman. The fact that he had political associations with Uber Straus-ian State Rep. Patricia Harless (R-Spring RER59) drew a line to a horrible discovery.

On February 19, 2004, Constable’s Deputy F. Scott Claborn was killed when a drunk driver slammed into his patrol car at an estimated 100+ mph. The driver was one Donald Lee Fincher, Jr., the nephew of Harless.

The family of Claborn has stated that Hickman gave them personal assurances that he would see to it that justice would be served and they would receive closure. However, Hickman did the opposite by attempting to convince the court that Fincher was not worthy of jail time. The court rebuffed the effort and Fincher was sentenced to four years for vehicular manslaughter.

But. Hickman and Harless are tight friends. Therefore, 17 months later after Hickman submitted a letter to the parole board, Fincher walked out of jail into what was supposed to be the babysitting care of the Harris County Constable’s Office Precinct Four.

This story first hit the MSM in 2008 when Claborn’s widow was awarded $5.1 million in a civil law suit against Fincher. When the attorneys for the Claborn’s requested that Hickman testify in the trial on behalf of his slain deputy, he declined citing his close relationship with the Fincher family, which includes Harless. That’s when the Hickman letters were discovered. Read the Original Chron.com Story from 2008

The fact that this was known since 2008, brings up another troubling component to the story. Harris County Judge Ed Emmett had to know about the death of Claborn and all the aspects of the case. Why would he appoint such a stained peace officer to the highest law enforcement position in the county and give him the advantage of incumbency going into an anticipated fiery primary? Now, Emmett’s character and/or judgment needs to be called into question.

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State Rep. Charlie Geren (R-Fort Worth RER56) earned the nickname “Cookie Monster” for his infamous and juvenile act of tying a string around an oatmeal raisin cookie and dragging it across the floor of the Texas House of Representatives to ridicule a colleague – State Rep. Jonathan Stickland (R-Bedford RER99) . It was witnessed and tweeted by a Hearst Newspapers reporter (see picture). That explains the cookie part.

Monster?

Geren is one of the last original 11 Republicans that conspired with 65 Democrats in the 2009 Texas Legislative Session to elect Joe Straus as Texas Speaker of the House. That act in itself should qualify one as a Frankenstein creation. But, another demonstration in a lack of decorum provided to be a more disturbing revelation. Charlie Geren is pro Planned Parenthood.

On March 11, 2015, Planned Parenthood Day at the Texas Capitol, Geren stormed into the office of State Rep. Jonathan Stickland and berated an 18 year old staffer. The offense that got Geren so steamed was a pro-life sign that Stickland, and several other pro-life state reps, had taped to their office doors.

When notified of the signs, Geren exited his office in the main Capitol building and took a long march to the annex. Arriving at Stickland’s office, he ripped down the sign, barged into the office and nearly brought the young staffer to tears.

Moments later, Stickland confronted Geren in an annex corridor about the incident. Geren claimed, as Chairman of the House Administration Committee, that such displays and decorating of the halls was a rules violation. Yet, within the corridors where the conversation between Geren and Stickland took place, were countless pro Planned Parenthood posters and banners – plastering the walls of the Texas State Capitol.

There we no reports made that Chairman “Cookie Monster” enforced such rules upon those that were promoting the ideals and mission of Planned Parenthood.

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The Dallas Police Department obtained medical records for Colleen Crowley this week as part of the criminal investigation into whether Johnny Manziel assaulted her, a source familiar with the investigation told ESPN on Thursday.

Crowley filed a complaint Feb. 5 alleging that Manziel assaulted her the night of Jan. 29 and early in the morning of Jan. 30.

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NASA has ordered five more missions from SpaceX to resupply the International Space Station, in a new deal that was signed in late December, Space News reports. That means the company will make a total of 20 cargo trips to the ISS for NASA under its original resupply contract — eight more trips than …… read more here.

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University of Houston and other institutions rightly abide by state higher education strategy.

With students potentially carrying weapons after Aug. 1, University of Houston faculty members may want to avoid sensitive subjects or drop certain topics from their curriculum altogether, a forum of professors suggested recently.

A slide shown at a recent discussion of a new state law, which will allow licensed individuals to carry concealed handguns on campus, says faculty may want to “not ‘go there’ ” to avoid creating a tense situation. This echoes concerns voiced by professors across the state that allowing guns into the classroom will limit academic freedoms and inhibit discussion of ……… read more here.

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Texas Right to Life (TRL) has produced a television ad and a long-form YouTube video that doubles down on the organization’s labeling of State Rep. Debbie Riddle (R-Tomball RER61) as a pro-life “fraud”. TRL would not release the exact dollar amount of the media buy. But the scathing charges of killing pro-life legislation during the 84th Legislative Session of 2015 within the videos come in the second week of early voting in the Texas GOP primary.

Riddle is locked in a re-election struggle with liberty movement favorite, Valoree Swanson for the House District 150 seat, which is located in north Harris County. Other candidates in the race appear to be drawing little attention.

The HD150 race was one that RagingElephantsRadio.com labeled as a “one to watch” this primary because of the past alliances that Riddle once had within social-conservative political circles that now consider her a foe. But, it’s not as if the crosshairs of TRL and other LM orgs trained on Riddle isn’t deserving. As the TRL YouTube video points out, Riddle was considered a conservative stalwart and enjoyed the support of TRL in past years and cycles. However, Riddle has since become a “lieutenant” of the pro Planned Parenthood Speaker of the House, Joe Straus.

The final straw for TRL was Riddle’s role in killing SB575 by State Sen. Larry Taylor (R-Friendswood RER73). Written to prohibit insurance companies from covering abortions in Texas, TRL confirmed and the Texas Tribune reported in May, 2015 that it was Debbie Riddle that sided with Democrats in the secretive and powerful Calendars Committee to achieve the assassination of the bill.

Apparently, authoring, sponsoring, and co-sponsoring bills with Democrats has become the standard M.O., for Riddle. It was RER that revealed how Riddle worked with four leftist Democrats to craft HB2150 in 2015 that fundamentally changed the way grand juries are selected in Texas. The reasoning being presented in the ranks of pro-life activists for the incomprehensible grand jury indictment of citizen journalists in the Planned Parenthood baby body parts trafficking case is because of this change in the judicial system.

Riddle especially drew the ire of RagingElephantsRadio.com and its president and CEO, Apostle Claver T. Kamau-Imani for being one of the nearly 50 Republicans that voted in favor of SB19 on the last weekend of the 2015 legislative session. SB19, written for the purpose of ethics reform under the Pink Dome, was easily passed in the Texas Senate and sent, clean, to the Texas House. In the House, the bill was turned into a Frankenstein monster that would have stripped Texans, literally, of their United States Constitution 1st Amendment rights, and sections of the Texas Bill of Rights dealing with freedom of religion, speech, and the press. Kamau-Imani stated on RER, “What Riddle and other Straus-ians voted for would have made the tactics of Lois Lerner, of IRS intimidation fame, legal in the state of Texas. They’ve tried to achieve stripping Texans of constitutionally-protected rights for two straight sessions, now. In both instances, Riddle voted in favor of tyranny – Texan-on-Texan tyranny. She needs to be fired, promptly, with much cause. Riddle is a legislative criminal and tyrant. The title of ‘Texan’ should be stripped from her identity.”

SB19 was so altered by the Joe Straus-led House, with the able assistance of State Rep. “Lord Byron” Cook (R-Corsicana RER56) that the bill’s name had to be changed, and convening a conference on the bill was impossible.

Texas Right to Life went even further. That didn’t just limit their ammunition to anti-life actions of Riddle, they also clobbered her on killing American Laws for American Courts legislation (ALAC) in the Calendars Committee, supporting an increase in the minimum wage, and with her strengthening ties to Speaker Joe Straus, her RER Liberty Score has plummeted over the last two sessions meaning that she’s now voting for leftist legislation as TRL’s TV ad emphasizes.

As revealed in the Riddle attack ads, Texas Right to Life is endorsing Valoree Swanson in the HD150 race.

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Spencer Golvach was a young business owner, thriving in Houston. On January 31, 2015, he was shot in the head at a Houston stop light, just after dropping off his girlfriend. The killer was Victor Reyes, an illegal invader that had been deported four times and had spent 5 years incarcerated.

After murdering Golvach, Reyes went on to murder two more men – one Hispanic, one African-American. The threat was terminated and his life ended by police in a shootout on that same night.

In an interview with RER’s George Rodriguez, Dan Golvach, Spencer’s father, squarely lays the blame of his son’s death at legislators in Austin, and their financiers, that refuse to eliminate sanctuary cities in the state. Golvach’s position is that legislation has been repeatedly filed to deal with the crisis. Yet, session after session sanctuary cities are not dealt with, severely. The opposite can be said and argued logically when legislators in both parties are willing to openly state that sanctuary cities don’t exist in Texas.

In his interview with El Conservador live on RER Wednesday, February 17, Golvach stated, “That’s exactly what happened 5 years ago with SB9 that became a house bill, HB9. Joe Straus killed it with stall tactics.

“There’s a lot of different ways you can kill a bill in committee. My friend Maria Martinez (Texans for Immigration Reduction and Enforcement, TFIRE) sat in on a lot of that. JoAnn Fleming and various people. And, he (Straus) just used stall tactics and wouldn’t let it get through. Had that bill passed, I’d still probably have a son.”

HB9 was taken up in Texas House State Affairs Committee in the 2011 legislative special session. It was left pending in committee on June 20, 2011. As was the case in 2015 when sanctuary cities legislation was killed, back in 2011 the chairman of the Texas House State Affairs Committee was State Rep. Byron Cook (R-Corsicana RER56).The History of HB9

“I’ve been involved in this campaign against Joe Straus because he has these stalling tactics and he is not going to let any sanctuary cities bills go through”, said Golvach.

“I’m at the point now where I’m willing to say this on the radio. I have some culpability in my son’s death. I’m going to tell you why. Because since this happened – yes, I always voted in the general elections and mid-term elections — but, I was one of these people that was a lifelong Republican and I would just go in and vote the straight “R” ticket. That’s not good enough. We need to quite thinking that a president is a political panacea for all of our problems.

“These local elections, your state rep, your state senator, United States Congressman…, or your U.S. Senator, those are very, very important elections. That’s why Joe Straus is in the Speaker’s seat. He’s not elected by Texas. He’s elected by one district. And the Democrats all voted for him because they know he’s not really a Republican, he’s one of them.”

Golvach admonished Texas voters to know the donors of legislators that refuse to close the border and end sanctuary cities, “Yes, I think that it is very troubling to me that someone like Charles Butt (the H.E.B. grocery store chain magnate) can walk into the state legislature like that because he’s got so much money and he has invested in so many campaigns that he can say ‘Don’t pass this sanctuary city bill or don’t pass this border security bill’, and they won’t. Because they’re terrified of him. Because they’re bought.”

Butt has been a strong financial backer of Straus and other pro-amnesty legislators with “R” behind their names. Just in the last election cycle, TEC reports show that Butt threw nearly $170,000 towards Joe Straus, alone.

Despite what is printed in Hearst Newspapers such as the Beaumont Enterprise, Houston Chronicle, Laredo Morning Times, Midland Reporter Telegram, and San Antonio Express-News, it is well documented that Reyes was an illegal invader and the murderer of Spencer Golvach.

Dan Golvach appears in a TV ad produced by Young Conservatives of Texas. Of the ad, Gilbert Garcia (ggarcia@express-news.net) wrote on February 18, 2016: “…which features a testimonial from Dan Golvach, whose son Spencer was murdered in Houston last year, allegedly by an undocumented immigrant who had been repeatedly deported.”

Lamar announced its 11-game schedule on Wednesday, including six matchups at Provost Umphrey Stadium.

The Cardinals offense will again be led by Harrington, who as a junior set the Southland Conference record with an FCS-high 2,092 rushing yards. He was the runner-up for the STATS FCS Offensive Player of the Year.